Magical Mystery Tour (Part 1) - The Beatles

1. Magical Mystery Tour
2. Fool on the Hill
3. Flying

Magical Mystery Tour

Magical Mystery Tour is the name of the 11-song album and 6-song double EP by the English rock band The Beatles, first released as an LP on 27 November 1967 and on 8 December 1967 as a double EP. It is the soundtrack to a one-hour television film of the same name that was filmed in color, but originally aired in black and white in the UK, in 1967. Initially packaged as a double EP in the UK, the recording was expanded to a full album on concurrent U.S. release, adding several recent singles to the B-side. This has since been adopted by Apple and EMI when the Beatles' discography was being put on Compact Disc, and is the only US release of theirs for which this was done.

After Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Paul McCartney wanted to create a film based upon the Beatles and their music. The film was to be unscripted: various "ordinary" people (including John Lennon's uncle Charlie) were to travel on a charabanc bus and have unspecified "magical" adventures, in the manner of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters.

The Magical Mystery Tour movie was made, but the hoped-for "magical" adventures never happened. During the filming, an ever greater number of cars followed the hand-lettered bus, hoping to see what its passengers were up to, until a running traffic jam developed. The spectacle ended after Lennon angrily tore the lettering off the sides of the bus.

Magical Mystery Tour was the first Beatles film project following the death of manager Brian Epstein in August 1967, and there has been much speculation that the absence of Epstein's judgement contributed to its undisciplined production, as seen, for instance, in the absence of a screenplay and professional direction. The film originally appeared twice on BBC-TV over the 1967 Christmas holidays (first in black and white, then in colour on BBC2), but was savaged by critics on its release[1]; it was, however, noted by Steven Spielberg in film school (according to McCartney in one of the interviews for The Beatles Anthology: "I've read that people like him have sort of said, 'When I was in school that was a film we really took notice of...' like an art film, you know, rather than a proper film.)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• the
• beatles
• magical
• mystery
• tour
• 1967
• fool
• on
• hill
• flying
• john
• lennon
• paul
• mccartney
• george
• harrison
• ringo
• starr

[bombarto]

this is a ridiculously underrated album. instead of just listening to it and realizing its incredible diversity and ingenuity, i suspect most people just look to the rolling stone top 500 albums and notice it's not there (while 11 others are). i suspect that rolling stone didn't even consider this album as a 'real' album, because it was originally released as a film (which was decimated by the critics) and an EP. if you forget all that bs and just listen to the album, it's one of their best!

[seajayjoonyo]

@flippertyjipperty They don't have any weak albums

[EdwardTheTechGeek]

I will buy the full cd of this because it Beatles.

[chickenbuttiscool]

this is probably acid inspired ... like everyother good song

[Wellsypig15]

Fool on the hill has quite a "dark side of the moon" feel to it, anyone agree?

[lees2oo8]

@TheSplugorth you're mistaking them for the stones...

[panzercat39]

@bombarto Absolutely correct,still my favorite Beatles album!

[andres1478963250]

the beatles numero 1 ala fecha :D

[TheNando777]

The last part of Flying is actually kinda creepy.

[TheSplugorth]

@ginocidian1 The Beatles were great, but they actually did cover a lot of blues songs.